Ducks and Kitties
by Salienne de Lioncourt
Summary: Response to Challenge. Oneshot. Angela finds out just where John got that rubber duck in his bathtub from and why.


**Disclaimer:** I don't own Constantine, him or the movie. Anything and everything from the movie is property of Vertigo/DC Comics and/or the WB and/or the writers, actors, directors, etc.

**A/N: **This fic was written in response to the challenge at me Constantine forum. (Come on, guys, you'll love it! Come join! http / daydreamer731 . proboards46 . com) It's a one-shot, completely removed from my actual fic. It has NOTHING to do with The Price of Repentance. It's just a random, fun little ficlet that my friend Kassie gave me the idea for. All hail her! (Cheers Kassie XD) Anywayz, enjoy! Make sure to R&R:D

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**Ducks and Kitties**

Angela really didn't know how she'd never asked about it before. It was so _obvious_; it had been there from her very first time at John Constantine's apartment. It didn't fit in in the _least_, and it was almost eerie in its strangeness. It just didn't _belong_. In another setting, certainly, it would have blended in perfectly, perhaps even accentuated the atmosphere and décor of the whole place. But in _John Constantine_'s apartment, it just didn't. At all.

It was eerie. _Eerie_. And it made Angela more than a little uncomfortable and, for lack of better terminology, weirded out.

Yet somehow, she'd failed to ask, even once, in all these months. In over a _year_. She'd failed to ask about it, and it remained as great a mystery as it ever had.

But this time, she'd made up her mind. This time, she was going to ask.

Pushing aside the curtain that acted as a door (the green-tinged, wooden sliding door was long out of business), she stepped out of the bathroom and moved left across the warm, brown and yellow tiled-floor towards the ratty old kitchen table. John was sitting there, wearing nothing but a pair of black boxers in the stifling heat… absentmindedly playing solitaire. It wasn't exactly the sort of thing you expected to find _the_ John Constantine doing, but he was doing it nonetheless.

"John, why do you have a rubber duck?" He looked up, having just put down a three of hearts.

His response was deadpan, without hesitation or a hint of emotion. "Because it's just so cute and cuddly." He went back to playing solitaire, drawing another card.

Angela shook her head slightly, padded barefoot over to him, and placed her arms over his bare shoulders, her chin atop his messy jet-black hair. Her own mussed, wavy brunette strands fell to either side of his temples. "John, why do you have a rubber duck?"

He smirked, not that she could see it, and continued to play solitaire as if she weren't hanging all over him. "Half-breeds."

She stood up straight, terminated all physical contact, and he was somewhat disappointed. "Half-breeds?"

"Half-breeds."

Well, that had been a very productive conversation. _Very_ productive. Oh yes, Angela felt as if she'd received such a profound answer to her question that she'd never need to ask anything more in the entirety of her life.

Oh, and she was the Dalli Llama, too.

She walked around his chair to stand beside him, leaned down and placed her hand over his to stop his ceaseless card game. "Half-breeds gave you a rubber duck and you kept it?" Angela didn't know which part of this was more ludicrous, that half-breeds would make a present of a _plastic bath toy_, or that John would _keep_ said plastic bath toy.

He turned to face her. She was almost at eye-level, her gray-blue eyes just above his brown. Well this was a change in perspective. It was usually the other way around.

Although he took notice of how the top half of her nightgown slipped, he didn't mention it.

"No, the plastic bath toy fights off half-breeds."

"I'm sorry?"

Constantine smirked again. He was enjoying this. "I use the rubber duck to fight off half-breeds."

Normally, he wouldn't have been this vague, but he was just having too much _fun_. Yes, John Constantine _did_ have a playful side. It just happened to be somewhat sadistic. It was never sadistic in a _serious_ way—at least not usually, and never with Angela—but it was nevertheless there.

Angela suppressed a strong urge to roll her eyes.

"John, _how_ do you use the rubber duck to fight off half-breeds?" Apparently, she'd have to be very specific. Maybe if she drew a diagram for him, he'd answer her question. Did she have to get the thing from the bathroom?

He considered dancing around this question as well, but in the end, decided against it. "I fill it with holy water."

Ah… that made sense… Angela supposed.

"And you squirt it at attacking half-breeds?" She was still incredulous.

"Basically, yeah." Constantine moved his hand away from underneath hers, going back to his Solitaire. Thrilling game, that Solitaire.

Angela straightened up, circumvented the table and sat down opposite John. "And I always thought you'd be more of a squirt gun kind of guy."

"Too obvious," John replied, glancing up for only a moment before looking back at the cards spread out before him. "A half-breed sees a Super Soaker, they might put two and two together. They see a rubber duck, they ignore it completely. What's strange about a rubber duck in a bathroom?"

"Well, what about the fact that it's in _your _apartment?"

"You attack someone in the bathtub, and then you tell me that you'd notice a rubber duck."

He had a point there. For a minute or so, the pair sat in contemplative silence, John playing his game and Angela deep in thought over the squeaky, bath time play toy. It was ingenious, actually. Who _would _notice a rubber duck on the edge of a bathtub and give it a second thought? If they knew John Constantine, the answer was absolutely anyone, but then again, an attacking half-breed would _not _know John Constantine. It was unlikely, therefore, that after getting past the inscriptions on the door and the jugs of holy water placed along the walls, they would pause at the imposing sight of… a rubber duck.

Angela, for one, would never have thought of it, but it actually didn't seem like that bad of an idea.

Finally, she spoke.

"John, where did you get the idea for this rubber duck?"

John paused in his game, looked over at her. "Beeman suggested it after I got attacked in the bath the last time and he had to bail me out." There was a smile tugging at his lips. "He told me he never wanted to see anything like that again. His vision was already bad enough without being blinded."

Angela smiled, but as sweet as this memory was, it was nonetheless sour. Beeman was dead, gone, buried, and Angela knew John blamed himself. Even though he was trying to hide it, she could see the pain reminiscing caused him behind the wall of his stoic features.

She reached across the table, took his hand in her own once more and squeezed. He didn't pull away but instead turned his hand over and squeezed back.

"He'd be happy knowing you're doing what he suggested," she said softly. "Keeping your bathroom safe from half-breeds, it's an important mission."

He let out a breath of a laugh, glanced down at his cards before looking back into her eyes. "Yeah. Worth dying for, even."

"John…" Again, Angela stood, and walked around the table. She knelt down beside him, placed a hand on his thigh. "It wasn't your fault."

He smirked. "Sure."

"John…" Desperately, Angela wanted to make John feel better somehow. _Somehow_. It had been over a year, and still the most recent deaths of his friends plagued him. How could they not? Even the others, some decades past, still did, after all.

Leaning upward, Angela brought her lips to his, kissing him. He was slow to react, still brooding over the deaths of Beeman and so many others, but gradually, react he did. If only for a moment, he tried to let himself forget. The cards laying forgotten on the table, he put one hand on the back of her head, holding her to him, as his other moved to her back, rubbing her flesh lightly through the soft, white fabric of her short cotton nightgown. She pulled away first, tugging on his arms and directing him to stand. He obliged.

"Come on, John," she murmured, her lips only a hair's breath away from his. "Maybe now you can explain to me why you have a Hello Kitty mat on your shower floor."

Constantine practically grinned. "Why don't I show you instead?"


End file.
